 "Udta Punjab row: Other films that were in CBFC's crosshairs")
Udta Punjab, which was scheduled to be released on June 17, has been grounded for now and the makers of the movie have their hands full fighting the film certification board.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has not cleared the Rs 40-crore movie, which was produced by Anurag Kashyap’s Phantom Films and Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures.
The CBFC has purportedly raised certain objections to the Shahid Kapoor-Kareena Kapoor starrer regarding references to the problem of substance abuse in Punjab, following which the movie might have to go through some changes. The board had also demanded the removal of Punjab from the title of the Abhishek Chaubey-directed movie while also allegedly asking for 89 cuts.
CBFC's decision has not gone down well with the makers, who have now moved the Bombay High Court against it.
Here are other popular motion pictures which have wrestled with the Censor Board in recent times:
1) NH10, The 2015 Anushka Sharma-starrer, ran into trouble with the CBFC, purportedly over violent scenes and language.
Also Read
In an interview with The Indian Express, director Navdeep Singh had said that half the members of the board had been ready to ban the film when they approached it for a censor certificate.
Responding to a question regarding his experience with the board, Singh had said: "Yes. That’s when we went to the revising committee. It was a surreal experience. There was a lady who seemed 'liberal' — and I made that judgement by the cotton sari, bindi and silver jewellery she was wearing — I thought she would be on our side, but she was the one who said that the film needs to be banned, 'because you guys are giving ideas to men on how to be violent towards women'."
The Censor Board's revising committee finally granted an adult certificate to the film, after demanding nine cuts in all.
2) Disney's The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favereau, was given a U/A certification by the board. The film's 3D effects could be 'scary' for children, the Censor Board cited as the reason behind this move — which invited criticism and became the subject of much derision on social media.
The movie, which released on April 8 in India, went on to gross more than Rs 183 crore within a 50-day period.
3) Even Agent 007, James Bond, could not protect himself from the scissors of the Censor Board. The latest Bond flick, Spectre, found itself under the scanner after the duration of the kissing scenes between Daniel Craig and Italian actress Monica Belucci raised concerns at the board which asked them to be shortened by half.
According to a report on Rediff.com, the film suffered four cuts - two verbal, two visual - before it was as given a U/A certificate by the CBFC.
Twitter reacted to this report with humour and the hashtag '#SanskariJamesBond' was seen trending soon enough.
5) En Dino Muzaffarnagar, a 147-minute investigative documentary on the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, was denied certification by the CBFC for the second time this year, reported The Indian Express. The CBFC justified its move by saying that the documentary had “great potential for creating communal disharmony”.
According to the report, the documentary was first denied certification in 2014. The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal had upheld the Board’s decision, the report added, and said that the film is “highly and openly critical of one political party (BJP), names its top leadership and tends to give impression of said party’s involvement in communal disturbances”.
6) Hansal Mehta's Aligarh, which is based on the true story of Aligarh Muslim University professor Dr Ramchandra Siras and the persecution he faced over his sexual orientation, also ran into trouble with the board this year.
Mehta, who initially did not want to make any cuts in the film, finally agreed to the cuts recommended by the CBFC in February this year, rather than fighting it out with the Tribunal.
The film was subsequently released with the proposed cuts being made.